"Tom Purdom - The Tree Lord of Imeten" - читать интересную книгу автора (Purdom Tom)

If he ever returned to this plateau, at least two people would pay with their
lives for everything he was about to endure.
For a moment his churning brain threw up a scene he had never
witnessed, but which had been described to him at least once a year since
he had been old enough to understand: his father, thirty-nine years ago,
looked back at Earth as the starship made its hurried escape. That had
been the most bitter moment of his father's life. For the usual
reasonsтАФpower, fear, greedтАФthe masters of psychological manipulation
had turned the Earth into a world where no human being could be sure his
thoughts were his own. The colony on the moon where the starship had
been constructed had been the last outpost of freedom, and everyone
there had known the psych engineers would eventually tamper with their
minds, too, if they didn't escape before the government decided their
freedom was no longer useful. Gathering all their courage, outfitting the
ship in twenty-four hours of frantic labor, they had left in a blaze of gunfire
as the police closed in, and plunged into the black gulfs between the stars,
promising themselves they would find a world where men could be free.
Soon he would be looking back at the settlement as his father had
looked back at Earth.




II
┬л^┬╗
At night a thin mist covered the bottom of the forest. The planet was
much wetter and hotter than Earth. Ocean covered almost eighty percent of
its surface, and it was twenty-three million miles closer to a sun which was
only a few hundred degrees cooler than the sun which warmed Earth.
During the hot, nine-hour day, immense quantities of water evaporated from
the sprawling ocean and were trapped between the mountains and the
southern coast.
Joanne pulled one handle of the cart and he pulled the other. No
underbrush grew in this part of the forestтАФthe trees blocked out most of
the sunlightтАФbut the ground fought their muscles every turn of the cart's
wheels. In the darkness and the fog they stumbled over roots, loose rocks,
and pitted, uneven ground. Fear of the night and the unknown stiffened their
legs and shortened their steps.
Cut off from all social organization, Harold felt naked and defenseless.
The animal noises coming from the trees unnerved him. His free hand
clutched the nail-studded club he had made as if he expected to be
attacked at any minute.
They had plunged due south when they left the anti-gravity platform and
then they had turned east. He wanted to stay close to the mountains so they
could eventually leave the forest and camp in higher, more open territory.
What they would do after that he didn't know. He couldn't think that far
ahead. He would find a hiding place for them and then he would rest and
brood and sooner or later he would begin thinking about going on with his
life.
What did a man do when he was no longer part of a community? He had